im still super mad that boss battles has basically existed unchanged for like 4 years now so here is what a theoretical super boss battles would look like
Boss Battles DX is an all-against-one deathmatch in which one player (the Boss) fights against a fragile but numerous horde of Soldiers in a frankly lopsided endurance test. as the Boss, the player must efficiently and quickly pick off the largest threats with their Basic Weapon(s) to earn Energy. Energy is used to fire their Special Attacks, which are powerful multi-target attacks that require specific timing or preparation but can be used to kill many enemies at a single time, leaving a large dent in the enemy team. on the opposite side, Soldiers are relatively fragile but universally agile enough to evade attacks from the boss
Soldiers are straightforward; they're essentially normal players. they spawn on a Ticket system, which means that as long as the Soldier team has enough Tickets to spawn more players Soldiers will continue to spawn normally. they move at a slightly higher then maximum speed and spawn with a random primary weapon and a reliably useful but noticeably less powerful secondary weapon. when a Soldier dies- or, more precisely, when their corpse disappears- they drop their primary weapon. certain primary weapons are noticeably more powerful, meaning the Soldier wielding them becomes a bigger threat to the boss. proper teamwork is necessary to keep that Soldier's weapon in the game as long as it can in order to continue dealing as much damage as possible to the Boss
every Boss is defined by their Special Attacks, but typically have similar enough Basic Weapons. the Basic Weapon is essentially a mundane, relatively frillless weapon that kills enemies well enough but doesn't deal enough damage quickly enough to be a practical weapon against the greater Soldier force. however, getting a kill with the Basic Weapon builds up Energy. with enough Energy a boss can fire a Special Attack by right clicking; the type of Special Attack that fires changes depending on the Boss. most special attack lineups follow a quadratic progression, starting with a useful if less spectacular area of effect attack and ending with a chaotic field-clearing undodgeable supermove.
now, that said, the Boss also LOSES energy for every 1% damage it takes. in order to continue firing special attacks, the Boss has to make sure they're killing faster then they can take damage and are appropriately dealing with emergent threats such as Soldiers with dangerous weapons or in flanking positions
Bosses consistently have the same amount of health regardless of playercount, because playercount does not necessarily influence damage potential; a team of 5 players will still have a 50 ticket stock, allowing them to deal comparable damage in those 50 tickets to a team of 10 players on their own 50 ticket stock. the biggest difference is the speed damage is dealt and the length of every game
Boss Design is simple; due to the Energy and Special Attack system balancing can be boiled down to a set of numbers that can be moved higher or lower depending on effectiveness and tactical value. a Boss is essentially just an interplay between their Basic Weapon, their basic stats, and their Special Attacks
when a Boss tries to fire their special attack, they always fire the last Special Attack they had earned the EN to unlock. firing the appropriate special subtracts that special's EN requirement from the Boss' energy reserve. in addition, a boss taking enough damage to lose energy is denoted by the boss emitting a plume of smoke and sparking.
a typical Boss, on paper, might look like this
Dixie
a Boss whose Basic Weapon is easy to use and effective and whose special attacks are straightforward but inflexible. a good boss for learning the game's systems.
9,000 HP (as in, exactly 90 players worth of health)
125% player movement speed
2x player scale
80 Soldier Tickets
[Basic Weapon] "Burst Rifle"
• a rifle that fires in a long, uninterrupted 10-shot burst over a span of ~2 seconds. only 7 shots from the burst are necessary to score a kill. the final shot in the burst explodes, dealing knockback and extra damage to anyone nearby. the projectiles are pinpoint accurate but travel slightly slower then average, necessitating fine aim
[EN 2] "Mortar Shell"
• Dixie fires a large explosive that flies high into the air, out of view of the imperceptive player, making a high-pitched squealing sound. the mortar does radius damage easily over a ~32 stud radius and kills for certain within ~16 studs, making it effective for killing large swathes of players
[EN 4] "Burst Barrage"
• the Burst Rifle makes a loud, metal-on-metal racking noise before it fires a flurry of it's 10th-shot explosives. the attack is hard to avoid but is actually less likely to kill an individual Soldier due to the added knockback on every bullet, and is more likely to scatter enemies and deal moderate damage across the total Soldier force
[EN 9] "Mortar Storm"
• Dixie fires a swarm of 5 mortar shells that spread over a ~48 stud area. the combined damage radius of the mortar shells guarantee a couple kills but an observant Soldier- as in, one not paying attention to Dixie, who can just shoot him with the Burst Rifle- can evade the mortars by simply looking up and getting out of the way due to their slow overall movement
the design intention is that Dixie's playstyle revolves around it's Burst Rifle, which is obviously the boss' primary weapon. due to Dixie's health reserve and relatively inefficient weapon fights are long and have lots of opportunities for the battle to shift in one side's or the other's favor. Dixie deals the most damage through it's Mortar and Burst Barrage, with Mortar Storm being more of a bonus certain-kill attack. Dixie actually has a hidden technique, due to the way energy works: at EN 6, Dixie can fire it's Burst Barrage to deal widespread direct damage and only lose 4EN out of 6, allowing the player to immediately pursue with Mortar Shell to deal even more damage. due to Dixie's generally-less-dangerous special attacks, soldiers are more likely to survive hits without dying, allowing the player to immediately follow-up with Dixie's basic weapon to immediately earn back some energy. this loop allows an experienced Dixie to constantly be laying down mortar shells, giving Soldiers something to worry about from two angles of attack
the big challenge with Boss Battles DX is making sure that the game never feels like you're up against an undefeatable opponent from either side of play; Pecon's boss battles suffers because of how easy it is for an experienced player to tip the scale so far in their favor that the game becomes a stomp and the fight becomes unfun
it also suffers from minibosses, which are a cool idea conceptually (a player who is noticeably a larger threat then the other players) but minibosses are too consistent and are hidden behind a point wall and they're something you have to do deliberately as a gamble as opposed to a fun surprise that gives a player the chance to turn the tables on a boss
it ALSO suffers from stuns. which are straight-up verboten in the case of BBDX, due to the inclusion of the Player Ticket system adding a 'soft stun' (as in, a respawn time) on death. any attack that would be a stun is much better presented as a raw kill, because with a raw kill there is no futile hope that you'll get unstunned before you get removed from play and thus there's no frustration that comes with the game stealing away a chance at a comeback without your ability to fight back
if someone were to host a prototype with this i'd honestly just suggest using the quake-type pack as placeholder weapons for the soldiers; keep the machine gun as the 'consistent and reliable secondary weapon' and have primary soldier spawns vary between the shotgun, the railgun, the warhead launcher, the missile launcher, the volley missile and the sniper rifle.
if this takes off i'm willing to do weapon design and sound design and everything really but progress might run slow because other games to write
if you've got feedback you should say something
